


One day at a time

by MinaZ



Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: Future Fic, Gen, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-28
Updated: 2014-01-28
Packaged: 2018-01-10 07:19:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1156718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MinaZ/pseuds/MinaZ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Magic did indeed not go away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One day at a time

**Author's Note:**

> To tell the story, I needed an un-informed narrator. Since I wanted to keep the style similar to the books, I needed a new original character. I hope this turned out okay.
> 
> Many thanks to old chatterhand for beta reading. :-) (though the messed up times are still on me)

I was so excited when I finished my probationary period. Where would I end up? I was thinking Identity Theft in Cyber Crime. They always needed people, and I was not half bad at it. There were better positions, and working CID would have been so much cooler, but there were also a lot worse.  
Four of us were waiting in front of Inspector Gray's office. He did not keep us waiting for long. Tommy got his envelope, turned around with a little wave and left. He would rather open it alone, he messed up so badly last weekend that he was scared they would throw him out for good. I thought they would be stupid to do so. Mary and Wang got their envelopes with a raised eyebrow from Gray.  
"We did not dare to separate the Siamese twins, so you both go to traffic."  
They high-fived before sheepishly thanking the inspector and hurrying off. I looked expectantly at Gray, who put the last envelope back into his pocket.  
"I thought PC Smith would also be here", he explained. Smith had been doing overtime watching a crime scene last night, and was still sleeping.  
"Sir?"  
"No paper trail for you, Constable Shaw. You will join Special Incident Response and Regulation under Chief Inspector Nightingale. You will meet Sergeant Kamara in plain clothes at Covent Garden." He gave me the address of a shop there and patted my shoulder before turning.  
"Sorry."  
It took me a moment to remember what SIRR was, the official names had just changed again. Among the ranks it was known by its old call sign 'falcon'. Operations with them were always strictly ‘do like the three apes’, you have heard nothing, you have seen nothing, and you bloody well won’t say anything. But you always, always better do as they tell you, especially if it involves the word ‘run!’ or ‘down!’.  
I had never seen them or worked with or near them. I had no idea why I was joining them now, but dutiful changed out of my uniform and made my way to Covent Garden. 

Sergeant Kamara was waiting for me at a muffin shop at the south end of the market. Everything was full of tourists, and she asked me if I wanted anything. I declined. The tall, dark skinned woman in her late forties got a raspberry-chocolate cupcake, for which I did not see her pay, before motioning for me to follow her. We strolled through the market and sat down on the benches beside the Actor’s Church, near a small fountain.  
I waited, she ate.  
"So. Feel like running screaming for the woods yet?"  
"No, ma'am."  
"Good, I hate to tell everything to people who won't stay anyway. You can leave right now. I am sure you have heard enough to know that it will get weird soon. You will join a different branch, be a productive member of the force and no one will mention this again. Ever. Especially you."  
I nodded.  
"You stay, you are on probation again. Sorry. That will last however long it takes, but not longer than fourteen months. If this is not right for you, or you are not right for us, you will join a different branch of the Met, and no one will talk about this again. Ever. Especially you."  
I nodded again  
"If you stay you will start an approximately ten year apprenticeship. During that time you will be a full member of the Met, and able to advance in rank according to your abilities. No matter which rank you hold, you will be junior to those further along or finished with their apprenticeship. You give up, you leave and may join a different branch, if anyone is willing to take you, which is unlikely. Everyone will talk, but you will lose not a single word about it. Ever."  
I was feeling increasingly uncomfortable and curious. I nodded again.  
The sergeant looked at me expectantly.  
"I would like to start my probation period at the SIRR then, ma'am." Funny enough, I did not know what I was going to say until I said it, so that was a bit of a surprise.  
"Good." She gave me a wide grin that made her look a lot younger.  
“Then welcome to the Folly. No one really calls us SIRR. I have to go and confiscate some items that came to our attention recently. You will be quiet and look as threatening as you can with your five foot. You will do as I say, and in the afternoon you will meet the chief inspector who will give you a better idea of what you have just agreed to."  
I nodded. Again. Like one of these stupid toy dogs.  
"Yes, ma'am."  
And then, it got weird. Really soon.

We did confiscate some old books and an urn (or so I thought back then) from some guys wrapped from head to toes in rags. I was sure their eyes were glowing, but they were very friendly. In the end, one offered me his hand to say goodbye, but one look from Kamara stopped both him and me. It was strange but not as strange as meeting Chief Inspector Sir Thomas Nightingale. My first impression was that he was much too young. There was talk that the name Thomas Nightingale was a title by itself, because there always was a Thomas Nightingale. He was in his thirties, brown hair, dressed in that vintage manner that had become a big trend last year, and much too young to be chief inspector. Or a Sir, I thought. He was very polite, sat me down in a big library, and then everything went down the rabbit hole. 

I did not learn the "craft" yet, but got introduced to more strange stuff than I had ever thought possible, even in London. Gods, vampires, trolls, fairies, witches, wizards, you read about it, they had it. Except aliens. I think. I hope ‘not our division’ was a joke.

The Folly comprised of the chief inspector, two inspectors who I never saw, two sergeant’s, Abigail Kamara and Francis Drake (no he was not happy about his name) and three constables, of whom Lee was almost finished with her apprenticeship, and Matthews and Meyer were in their third and sixed year respectively. And there was Molly. She was... Molly, I guess. It must have been the smallest branch the whole police force ever had.

Five months later, I was to meet our liaison with the river goddesses and gods, Inspector Brook. I was waiting at a pier near London Bridge. It was a warm and sunny day in May. Apparently, the inspector was normally more involved in the day to day London falcon business, but there had been trouble upstream that had lasted for almost half a year.  
I was watching the gulls down at the Thames, when I heard my name being called.  
"Constable Shaw? Pleased to meet you."  
I looked into a dark face framed by hair that was braided in cornrows and tied back. The eyes were the strangest I have ever seen. Almond shaped they reminded me a bit of a cat and the colour was a muddy brown-green. I felt locked into place for a moment and something like the glamour I had felt when I met the Queen of the Quiet People, but not really.  
Suddenly it was fine and the eyes looked much more normal and I finally took his hand, which he must have been offering me for some time. I only realised that it was missing two fingers when I shook it.  
"I am Inspector Peter Brook. I think we have some things to talk about."  
I nodded. "Yes, sir."  
He was about Nightingale's age and held himself with the same confidence, though he had not joined the same vintage trend and wore jeans and a grey t-shirt.  
We sat down in the sun on a nearby bench and watched the tourists.  
"You don't talk much"  
"No, sir"  
He snorted.  
"That is just as well when you deal with the demi-monde, but among follow Isaacs, you will have to ask more questions. Aren't you curious?"  
"Yes, sir."  
He signed. "So?"  
I picked at my fingernails, which were incredibly short again and a horrible tell.  
"I just think I will ask impossibly stupid and naive questions."  
"Welcome to the club" He turned toward the river.  
“I doubt you can ask questions much worse than I did. So, out with it.”  
I watched him out of the corner of my eye.  
"What are you?"  
He raised an eyebrow and commented, “Interesting start", before leaning back.  
“I am an inspector of the Special Incidents Response and Regulation unit.”  
I gave him an unimpressed look. He had asked me to ask questions. I got a grin back.  
"I was born in London and swore to keep the Queens... Well by now the Kings Peace, which I will with all but one exception."  
I waited.  
"If I have to choose between keeping the peace and protecting my wife, she will always come first."  
I frowned.  
"Isn't that the same for everyone," I asked.  
He seemed delighted.  
"Yes it is."  
"But your wife is... magical?"  
A grin again. "Isn't every partner to everyone?"  
I pulled a face. That was just too cheesy.  
He laughed again before finally becoming serious.  
"I married a river goddess shortly before I finished my apprenticeship. We wanted to wait, but when the only choice was between drowning or dying, it was an easy decision. It caused a lot of trouble, but in the end I guess everything worked out. Thanks to Beverley's stubbornness and Lady Ty turning the whole thing into a political match. I am the only Isaac that does not live in the Folly, since it would be no place for her, but beside that, I am a normal officer, or as normal as it gets with us."  
I nodded.  
"Only that you were sworn in when we still had a queen. Which was at least twenty five years ago, so you were what...? Ten? I am wondering that no one told me 'Too old she is to begin the training' yet."  
"So you were listening. I was your age when I stared. Yes, I might be a bit older than I look." He added before I could ask.  
"Nightingale too?"  
"Yes, but not for the same reasons."  
I opened my mouth but he answered before I could ask again.  
"No, working for the Folly will not automatically grant you a longer life. To be honest, the opposite is true. And nothing ever comes without a price."  
He leaned forward and looked in the distance.  
"This is a dangerous job, like you surely have realised by now. We get special hazard pay because we are about ten times as likely to get maimed during the job. Backup is always a problem, because bringing in outside people often puts them in unacceptable danger. The rest of the police like us well enough, but mostly because they know that if we weren't there, they would have to deal with this shit. No one likes us showing up at their case, or to call us in, but it is getting better. You cannot talk with your friends about most of your work, though I leave it up to you what you tell your family. The biggest challenge will be staying alive through the next ten years."  
It took me embarrassing long to understand what he just said.  
"I am an apprentice now? I can start learning magic?!"  
Luckily, no one was around to hear me, but the inspector still gave me a stern look.  
"Sorry. But really, probation time is over?"  
He shook his head but smiled.  
"Not quite yet, but soon. Thomas will join us to see the commissioner next week, until then you must have made your decision. Then you will be sworn in as my apprentice."  
That startled me.  
"But I thought Nightingale... ?"  
"Nightingale was master to all active members of the Folly, but taking on more than three at once would be a folly indeed. You can be proud, you will be my first!"  
This time people heard and gave us very strange looks. I turned beet red and Brook was laughing loudly.  
"Sorry."  
"But you don't know me at all."  
"I chose you to be picked for probation before I had to leave, and I trust Thomas judgement."

And that was that. A week later, I was London's tenth police wizard apprentice since the turn off the century, and learned that the past five months, I had not seen the top of the iceberg, I had been playing a bit with the snow lying on top of the tip. Being a full member of the Folly felt great, even though magic was much harder to learn and less showy than expected. I messed up a few times, and I think at least some of Brooks hair would have turned grey, if it could, much to Sir Thomas amusement, for some reason.  
It was several years until I finally met the mysterious Inspector May, even though she did not leave the Folly once during my entire time there.

**Author's Note:**

> I apologise to everyone who would have liked to see Beverley. Head canon is that she went into politics as well, and is giving Lady Ty hell. But that just did not fit in here anywhere. ^^° Same goes for Lesley, since that is a complete separate story (that I probably will never write).


End file.
